It's amazing how outrageous that was, and yet, how quickly it fell apart. You'd think if someone had the connections to get that contract, they would have had the connections to keep it. Almost makes me think there was actual fraud, not just cronyism but outright lies in an application or something.
Good to remember there are still plenty of cases where public outrage and sunlight genuinely forces action. Not enough, but not none.
Now where's the Muellerween post? Manafort is in custody!!
I was hoping for more than Manafort and some guy I never heard of. I was really good all year.
1: it's Leninism. "Push out a bayonet. If it strikes fat, push deeper. If it strikes steel, pull back for another day." If there are no consequences to a failed attempt, it makes sense to do as many as possible.
There are only consequences if the victims of the corruption are white and don't speak Spanish.
Further to 4, Mannafort hummed along without a problem until he over-reached. If Trump hadn't become president, Mannafort would still be conspiring, laundering money, etc.
And even now, the most likely outcome is Mueller being fired and/or Mannafort being pardoned.
6.2: state-level charges? Those can't be reached by a presidential pardon.
Yes, but this mess is never going to be fixed by a criminal investigation. The process of getting to the point where an independent criminal investigation can occur and result in a conviction that sticks is pretty much just taking back Congress. The point is to be steel often enough that the bayonet goes blunt.
Perhaps I'm over-optimistic, but I think "Donald Trump's campaign manager was just indicted for conspiracy against the United States" is a good campaign talking point.
7: Mueller has made a point of bringing in state AGs.
9: Right up there with "Grab 'em by the pussy."
Every Trump voter knows that Manafort is being set up. Heck, I didn't vote for Trump and you just heard me say that he wouldn't have been targeted had Trump not been elected.
I agree that Manafort wouldn't have been a target if Trump has been elected. But I think there are more GOP voters who worry about treason than there are who worry about the rights of women with respect to their own bodies.
10 And a lot of that money laundering activity took place in NY.
12.1: that did actually make a difference. His polling suffered after the tape.
It's probably pretty hard to launder money in the United States without doing something illegal in NY.
16 It's true. Dry cleaners in Ohio look at you funny if you bring in money.
Is it conceivable for someone to be excitedq about a given piece of news while in full knowledge that it won't solve everything, even if brought to a logical conclusion? Completely theoretically.
(This could have been the first act of an epic rugsweeping.)
People in Ohio don't even have dry clean-only clothing.
If you won't tolerate a few Nazis and some treason in order to cut taxes on billionaires, do you really love America?
13: Do GOP voters care about treason? My impression is that as long as it pisses off the liberals, they're A-OK with it.
22: It's not treason if Republicans do it.
Extremism in defense of tax cuts is no vice.
15: When the Access Hollywood tape broke, I was absolutely certain that Trump's chances of becoming president had been reduced to less than zero. This is why I was wrong.
21, 22: Not to defend anyone soft on treason (or racism or misogyny), but the GOP is a big coalition. If only 15% of its voters care enough about treason to stay home, then elections end up looking pretty different.
Rove was smart to play for 50% +1 in everything, which worked until it didn't. The current crop of geniuses think playing for 37% is going to work for them, because 37 out of 46 is still a majority. It *will* work, since all they want is to get what they can while the getting is good.
On the OP, it's not clear what exactly is going on, but if this was a convenience termination (rather than for default) then the owners of WFE just might do pretty well. And if it's for default, their lawyers will have a better than even chance of getting it converted, even if the process eats up the purest part of the profit.
(In some other decade, I worked on a government contracts case in the courts of Puerto Rico. We won with what some might consider an overly technical argument.)
24: Did Fox News not cover "Pussygate" at all? I'm thinking they did, at least a little, and people just forgot.
You want collusion charges? I got yer collusion charges.
And this is a guilty plea, not an indictment- Trump foreign policy adviser (one of 5 announced at the time) admitting he lied to the FBI about Russian contacts and that the truth is Russia contacted him after he joined the campaign and that he tried to arrange meetings directly between the campaign and the Russian government.
Trump is hiring from the families of Greek dictators now?
Or is Papadopoulos just Greek for "Smith"?
27: Yes, the Papadopoulos thing hits much, much closer to the bone. An effective 1,2. White House fuckos lay it on heavy that Manafort is only financial/not campaign* and then this thing comes out.
But fuckpig of the white misogynistic 'left" Glenn Greenwald here to explain to you stupid motherfuckers that you are stupid...
"Just bc a Trump campaign official admitted to colluding with Russia, doesn't mean Trump colluded with Russia.But don't expect #theResistance to understand this...." This in response to the whole main thrust of his "you red-baiters!" coverage during the campaign is totally blown up.
*But of course the slimy mfer worked for "free" as campaign chairman.
27: Yes, the Papadopoulos thing hits much, much closer to the bone. An effective 1,2. White House fuckos lay it on heavy that Manafort is only financial/not campaign* and then this thing comes out.
But fuckpig of the white misogynistic 'left" Glenn Greenwald here to explain to you stupid motherfuckers that you are stupid...
"Just bc a Trump campaign official admitted to colluding with Russia, doesn't mean Trump colluded with Russia.But don't expect #theResistance to understand this...." This in response to the whole main thrust of his "you red-baiters!" coverage during the campaign is totally blown up.
*But of course the slimy mfer worked for "free" as campaign chairman.
30 & 31 shamefully was me....
What is becoming ever more enraging to me is how many juicy stories were just laying out there in the campaign but were generally ignored by the white nationalist-curious mainstream press. Easy fucking pickings. Makes the email/Clinton Foundation domination of the news even more damning.
And even more shamefully 30 & 31 was a parody account. And I fell for it. Fuck me. (Although an effective one because it was not far off from his recent stuff which has included regular appearances on Fox.)
The Glenn Greenwald stuff was from a parody. The Poopadoopalosaurus stuff was real...
21 to 13, as of course you realize.
Trump and the Republicans don't depend on a democratic majority to win election and/or enact policy.
To 15, I actually am more optimistic than that. I really do hope that in the long run, treason (unlike pussy-grabbing) will matter. In the short run I don't think this will cost Trump anything meaningful in the polls (unlike pussy-grabbing, as you point out).
For the record, on this date: RCP polling average is 39.3 approve, 56.4 disapprove.
538's all polls average has him at 37.4% approve and 57% disapprove.
Does anyone think that this will drop him below 35% in the next two weeks in either average?
Anyone out there think it will hurt the Republicans in the Virginia governor's race? The Alabama Senate race?
While it matters if Trump fires Mueller and/or pardons Manfort, I am of the opinion that what we want is precisely what we're getting - a long-running scandal and a series of indictments. Congress will never impeach Trump, ever. Even if they would, do we want Pence or Ryan with three years to install Gilead/go Galt? The best thing we can possibly get is a long-running, scandalous investigation that casts a shadow on Trump, fragments the party and dispirits Republican voters.
Also, I may be wildly optimistic but I think it's going to be hard for Trump to fire Mueller or pardon Manafort. I think that the Trump administration is founded on an incorrect premise - that rich conservatives would uniformly prefer to burn society down and rule over the ashes rather than continue being plutocrats in a stable, unequal situation. If anything really brings Trump down, it will be this miscalculation. Most rich people just basically want things to be like they are now but nicer, not to live in heavily secure compounds and helicopter in and out over the rioting poor or whatever. Trump - he isn't just a rich guy, he's a sociopath, and he doesn't understand that. He doesn't enjoy normal things. Normal rich people enjoy being rich not just because you have more power and things than others but because, like, having your own island and luxury towels and endowed chairs and people to do your laundry and six fancy houses and so on is enjoyable in itself. Trump obviously hates everything that isn't about hurting other people - he doesn't like food or nice clothes or antiques or normal rich people things - and he doesn't understand why anyone would want a world that wasn't them sitting atop a pile of gold surrounded by starvation and misery.
Little known fact: the "Crooked" in Crooked Hillary refers to what happens to the bayonet point.
On the PR contract. interesting that it may well be "local" PR corruption (which I am sure the Trump WH will trumpet); potentially a pro-active grovel* before Trump.
*The demands for visible praise and fealty from Trump from people desperately depending on the Federal government has been utterly gross (and predictable). And to me very underplayed. You know what America, years of fascination and overpraise of Mob movies/TV has prepared you to recognize this pattern.)
I think that the Trump administration is founded on an incorrect premise - that rich conservatives would uniformly prefer to burn society down and rule over the ashes rather than continue being plutocrats in a stable, unequal situation.
I think that is exactly what a substantial majority of rich conservatives want. I'm hoping less rich conservatives realize what the rich conservatives want and how it would fuck them over.
Now where's the Muellerween post? Manafort is in custody!!
Alrighty-dokey!
I think we can combine the Manafort into this. Since already started.
2nd 41. It's all a big steaming heap of corruption.
Fall really is the season for the best steamers.
Isn't it pretty well established that people don't care about their own absolute financial situation as much as they care about being better off relative to others? Why would you think that this applies less to rich sociopaths (and you need to be at least somewhat sociopathic to be worth >$100M.)
36: We know that there's a strong nihilist tendency among Trump supporters. Surely an oligarchy that had any interest in the general welfare would have kept Trump from being elected in the first place.
Right now, Congress is preparing an investigation of Russian collusion with the Clinton campaign, and the media is colluding to make this a front-page story. Explain how that happens in a country where powerful people give a fuck about anything?
Paul Ryan and Dean Baquet -- an optimist might conclude -- are not as interested in widespread immiseration as Charles Koch. But when Koch whistles, the Republican Congress and NYT will answer.
Have we hit rock bottom yet? Maybe! Will we hit bottom when Seoul is a smoking cinder? Maybe! But maybe not.
As yourself: How does the oligarchy's response to global warming illuminate this statement:
I think that the Trump administration is founded on an incorrect premise - that rich conservatives would uniformly prefer to burn society down and rule over the ashes rather than continue being plutocrats in a stable, unequal situation.
How does the election of Trump in the first place reflect on this statement?
So far, every time someone bets that we have finally hit rock bottom, they've been wrong. But maybe this time ...
Most rich people just basically want things to be like they are now but nicer
That actually sounds like a policy platform I could get behind.
Actually all of 36.2 rings fairly true, even if it was written by an embittered reluctantly serious person who would much rather be worrying about obscure stuff on Tumblr. I feel ya, Frowner. There are bits of my brain currently engaged in keeping track of the stats of real-life ICBMs which would be much better employed keeping track of the stats of fictional nuclear-powered ekranoplans.
Yes. Will no one think of the toll on technologically-oriented speculative whimsical fiction?
So far, every time someone bets that we have finally hit rock bottom, they've been wrong. But maybe this time ...
It's rock bottoms all the way down.
One of my hopes has been that rich people who think they'll be ok with being on top in an authoritarian environment look at what can happen when the state has the power to say whatever it wants in the media (which it controls), and can jail basically anyone because it's very hard to do anything one hundred percent legally so there's always a charge to reach for. You might want to be an oligarch but you don't want to be an oligarch who's fallen out of favor.
45: Trump won because of a perfect storm, not because he was popular. Russian influence, Clinton campaign incompetence, voter suppression in key states, state level politics, the tendency to elect presidents from alternating parties (which IMO totally gets left out as a factor in the election)...if any one of those things had broken differently, Trump wouldn't have been elected. This was not a landslide and it did not reflect deep organizing. Congress is factionalized right now - most of the evil done by this administration has been done through the various Federal agencies and it does not seem to me like standard American elites are all "la la it's totally cool that the State Department is basically useless now, crush the poors!!!"
My bet is that if you had magical powers and could secretly contact all major Republican politicians and offer to wave a wand and install, eg, Jeb!, rather than ol' Granny-Starver, Vice President Can't Meet With Women or Donny Two Scoops, every one of them would fall all over themselves to beg.
I think that people are underestimating, also , the failure of those two White Lives Matter events this weekend. On the left, if there's a super successful protest (like Seattle) everyone is pissed that they weren't there and just itching to have a version at home. Like, in the two years following Seattle, there were three really big Seattle-style protests here (and corresponding beat-downs, etc) and everyone was super into going to DC and Miami to protest other trade agreements. If Charlottesville and Berkeley had actually been propaganda victories for the right, all the little neo-nazis would have been super-stoked for round three and would have moved heaven and earth to get to last weekend's rallies. That those were a total fizzle says to me that the alt-right is not in fact a strong, deep-rooted movement, that it is based in fads and in the ease of organizing one shocking and terrible event.
My point is - these are bad times, but they are not yet "Sauron is in charge, good people are just murdered out of hand, everything has collapsed, there is no law now" times and I think we make mistakes by just assuming that the Trump administration is all-powerful and on the same page with most other conservatives.
That all sounds right to me. Particularly the alt-right bit -- I have been immensely reassured by finding out that they don't seem to actually have thousands of violent racists ready to boil out of the woodwork.
Just millions of closet racists inspired to vote because they see hundreds of violent racists on the tv.
these are bad times, but they are not yet "Sauron is in charge
We are more at the "Gríma Wormtongue is in charge" stage.
Everyone should read the link in 27. Holy shit. A Trump campaign advisor knew that he was meeting someone from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and thought he was meeting Putin's neice, and kept in constant, acknowledged communication with the rest of the campaign about all of this, including in a meeting with Trump himself (although the face-to-face meeting with Trump took place shortly before the Russian contacts started telling the advisor about having access to Hillary's emails, so Trump may retain some highly implausible deniability on that front).
52: Here is my prediction: I think that the crazy 27% are/will be motivated by violent racists, but that the remainder of the Republicans will be demotivated. This is as much cultural as anything else - the gamergater/kill-the-normies/Kekistan people and the unattractive-swastika-wearers may get a lot of cred in their respective social circles, but they look like greasy high school delinquents to a lot of the more boring kind of Republicans. Even Spencer and the polo shirt crowd just read like greasy delinquents dressed up for court.
I'm liking what Frowner says. Stormcrow and CCarp too.
Have we discussed yet what a complete PoS Kevin Spacey is? I mean in addition to the pedophilia but hiding behind his homosexuality as an excuse for the former and thereby conflating the two and....just an utter PoS.
More not-horrible news: those answering yes to Gallup asking "Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?" are up to Democrats 72%, independents 67%, Republicans 51%, overall 64%.
Thought this would go better in this thread: apparently John Kelly has chosen this moment in time to go on Fox and provide some Civil War both-sidesism. Back when property was sacred. I have not idea what the context, just picking up the Twitter crumbs:
"Robert E. Lee was an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state."
"The lack of ability to compromise led to the Civil War."
Interview was with Laura Ingraham and it seems she pushed for some Civil War statue defending which led him to expand on his thoughts.
Extremism in defense of slavery isn't a vice unless slavery is bad.
79 last is totally true. 3/5 human should be enough for anyone.
Since this is the only politics thread active: I very much hope that "I had to defame these women to win an election so it's not defamation" does not work.
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